Trump Hopes for Ceasefire Progress     05/19 06:18

   President Donald Trump is hoping separate phone calls Monday with Russian 
leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make 
progress toward a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump is hoping separate phone calls 
Monday with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr 
Zelenskyy will make progress toward a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.

   Trump expressed his hopes for a "productive day" Monday -- and a ceasefire 
-- in a social media post over the weekend. His effort will also include calls 
to NATO leaders.

   Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to the media on Monday that Putin 
and Trump will speak at 5 p.m. Moscow time (1400 GMT), about 10 a.m. Eastern, 
and called the conversation "important, given the talks that took place in 
Istanbul" last week between Russian and Ukrainian officials, the first such 
negotiations since March 2022.

   Trump has struggled to end a war that began with Russia's invasion in 
February 2022, and that makes these conversations a serious test of his 
reputation as a dealmaker after having claimed he would quickly settle the 
conflict once he was back in the White House, if not even before he took office.

   The Republican president is banking on the idea that his force of 
personality and personal history with Putin will be enough to break any impasse 
over a pause in the fighting.

   "His sensibilities are that he's got to get on the phone with President 
Putin, and that is going to clear up some of the logjam and get us to the place 
that we need to get to," said Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff. "I think it's going 
to be a very successful call."

   Trump's frustration builds over failure to end war

   Still, there are fears that Trump has an affinity for Putin that could put 
Ukraine at a disadvantage with any agreements engineered by the U.S. government.

   Bridget Brink said she resigned last month as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine 
"because the policy since the beginning of the administration was to put 
pressure on the victim Ukraine, rather than on the aggressor, Russia."

   Brink said the sign that she needed to depart was an Oval Office meeting in 
February where Trump and his team openly berated Zelenskyy for not being 
sufficiently deferential to them.

   "I believe that peace at any price is not peace at all," Brink said. "It's 
appeasement and as we know from history, appeasement only leads to more war."

   Trump's frustration about the war had been building before his post Saturday 
on Truth Social about the coming calls, which he said would begin first with 
Putin at 10 a.m. Monday.

   Trump said his discussion with Putin would focus on stopping the "bloodbath" 
of the war. It also will cover trade, a sign that Trump might be seeking to use 
financial incentives to broker some kind of agreement after Russia's invasion 
led to severe sanctions by the United States and its allies that have steadily 
eroded Moscow's ability to grow.

   Trump's hope, according to the post, is that "a war that should have never 
happened will end."

   His treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" 
that Trump had made it clear that a failure by Putin to negotiate "in good 
faith" could lead to additional sanctions against Russia.

   Bessent suggested the sanctions that began during the administration of 
Democratic President Joe Biden were inadequate because they did not stop 
Russia's oil revenues, due to concerns that doing so would increase U.S. 
prices. The United States sought to cap Russia's oil revenues while preserving 
the country's petroleum exports to limit the damage from the inflation that the 
war produced.

   No ceasefire but an exchange of prisoners

   Putin recently rejected an offer by Zelenskyy to meet in-person in Turkey as 
an alternative to a 30-day ceasefire urged by Ukraine and its Western allies, 
including Washington.

   Those talks ended on Friday after less than two hours, without a ceasefire 
in place. Still, both countries committed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war 
each, with Ukraine's intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, saying on Ukrainian 
television Saturday that the exchanges could happen as early as this week.

   While wrapping up his four-day trip to the Middle East, Trump said on Friday 
that Putin had not gone to Turkey because Trump himself wasn't there.

   "He and I will meet, and I think we'll solve it or maybe not," Trump told 
reporters after boarding Air Force One. "At least we'll know. And if we don't 
solve it, it'll be very interesting."

   Zelenskyy met with Trump's vice president, JD Vance, and top diplomat, 
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Rome on Sunday, as well as European leaders, 
intensifying his efforts before the Monday calls.

   The Ukrainian president said on the social media site X that during his 
talks with the American officials, they discussed the negotiations in Turkey 
and that "the Russians sent a low level delegation of non-decision-makers." He 
also said he stressed that Ukraine is engaged in "real diplomacy" to have a 
ceasefire.

   "We have also touched upon the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral 
trade, defense cooperation, battlefield situation and upcoming prisoners 
exchange," Zelenskyy said. "Pressure is needed against Russia until they are 
eager to stop the war."

   The German government said Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French, British and 
Italian leaders spoke with Trump late Sunday about the situation in Ukraine and 
his upcoming call with Putin. A brief statement gave no details of the 
conversation, but said the plan is for the exchange to be continued directly 
after the Trump-Putin call.

   In a post on X about the conversation, French President Emmanuel Macron said 
that Putin on Monday "must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day 
unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and 
Europe."

   The push came as the Kremlin launched its largest drone barrage against 
Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, firing a total of 
273 exploding drones and decoys, Ukraine's air force said Sunday. The attacks 
targeted the country's Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.

   Witkoff spoke Sunday on ABC's "This Week" and Brink appeared on CBS' "Face 
the Nation."